About

Did you know AVERAGE TEENAGERS in the US or Europe are INDEBTED by a 4-digit sum?

Or that most teenagers have FALSE ideas about their FUTURE SALARIES and take on debts they will NEVER PAY BACK?

Obviously, there is A CHALLENGE TO BE SOLVED. Here is our solution: Kicked Out - an addictive Facebook game that trains financial literacy skills!

WHY A FACEBOOK GAME?

We found out: If kids between 13 and 19 learn how to take smart financial decisions, it will impact their long-term money management patterns.

Learning how to deal with personal finances is like learning how to ride a bike. Your mom can explain things, but you’re probably going to fall a few times before you make it around the block. But there is no educational tool that teaches kids money management in that way!

So we decided to develop it ourselves: a tool for financial literacy education that is intuitive, fun, accessible and really effective. Kicked Out! will be an online social game that is not explicitly educational. Rather, the game dynamics train players’ "alarm bells" to go off in situations where dealing with money responsibly is key.

HELP US MAKE IT REALITY BY BACKING THIS PROJECT, just like these guys:

WHAT’S THE GAME ABOUT?

Kicked out! is about
finally living on your own and throwing great parties for your friends and surprising party crashers like Justin Beaver, Lady Giga or Dustin Jimberlake!

The story goes as follows... your parents kick you out of the house and you
find yourself in an empty apartment, waiting to be furnished and filled
with party people. You will receive some start-up money and can
start turning the apartment into your perfect party place. However, you quickly find out that the world out there is not at all as cozy and easy-to-handle, as you thought. Much to the contrary, the world is in a state of trouble and surviving is tough. You come to learn world revolves around one mysterious resource. Your mission is to equip yourself with that resource and to never run out of it. In order to secure your life and to be a great party host, you have to step out of your room and run errands, complete quests and fight challenges out in this world. And you have to make sure you never loose sight of your savings...

• (5) monitor and evaluate the in-game learning effects, on which we'll base our next product: a training package for schools to use the game for teaching financial literacy.

Please back us! The only thing standing between us and a global financial literacy revolution is... the last few cents.

HOW DID IT ALL START?

In June 2011, two young social business experts, Katharina and Matthias met with a games for change-designer, Doris Rusch, tp explore the roots of youth poverty in industrialized countries. They concluded: youth poverty is strongly connected to the ability of handling personal finances. What is referred to Financial Literacy or Financial Capability has one important meaning:

The freedom to live a self-determined life.

Knowing how to handle money smartly is key, because it gives people the opportunity to live a life in dignity and have the freedom to fulfill their dreams within the scope of their financial means. Unfortunately, we found out that this crucial life skill is something lacking throughout society, especially among the young generation. Yet, handling money is not being taught in our society. Most importantly, there is no safe environment to experience what works and what doesn’t when it comes to money…

So, how would we teach teenagers to handle money smartly? In what way would they accept learning about finance? Where should we start?

We came up with the following idea: Why not develop a Facebook game like Farmville or Mafia Wars and include game play dynamics that will train young people’s financial literacy skills? That way, we reach young people in their free time, speaking their language, and giving them the opportunity to actually have FUN while learning about money. Because learning life skills has to be fun, in order to have an effect.

Just as games like “World of Warcraft” actually teach their players multitasking and strategic thinking, players will only be able to win our game, if they have internalized the skills, knowledge and experiences they need for managing their money smartly.

ECONOMIST GEEKS! Here is more about our game science

Intuition rather than rational behavior: The challenge in training financial literacy skills and
financially sustainable behavior is that dealing with money is largely
based on intuition rather than rational choice.

Telling kids about the nuts and bolts of personal finance is not enough.
Children need the possibility to experience financial challenges.
They need to learn how to overrule impulse purchasing, conspicuous consumption,
and identify debt traps.

Learning by playing

Studies all over the world repeatedly confirm that children are much more likely to learn when they are not forced to do so, but when they play. This is why learning via games proves highly effective: children are much more likely to learn and
retain knowledge through games vs. simply being told.

So our game, Kicked Out, offers
teenagers the opportunity to experience the scope of personal finances in order
to bridge the gap between financial knowledge and financially
responsible behavior.

Studies have shown that children and young adults who play shooter games score higher when tested for
hand-eye coordination, multitasking and strategic skills. With Kicked Out we
achieve the same intuitive learning effect in the area of financial literacy
skills.

How Kicked Out works

To develop Kicked Out we convened a team of psychologists, educators, behavioral economists and debt counselors
to work with game designers. This interdisciplinary team of experts ensures the
game covers necessary elements teenagers need to internalize in order to more responsibly
handle personal finances. The game play dynamic is as close as possible to real
life scenarios, while integrated in a fun, social media environment.

How much does life really cost?

Extensive research done for Kicked-Out showed the
most common reason young people fall into debt is a combination of unforeseen
events and no savings. In other words, young people lack financial forecasting
and contingency planning skills.

Another factor is many young people have
misguided expectations about future earnings. They live beyond their means in
the belief that debts accumulated today can be paid back once they receive a high
salary later. Altogether, 40% of Americans say they live beyond their means.

In Kicked Out, players will be repeatedly
confronted with the most common of these pitfalls. They will train in financial
forecasting and contingency planning. They will get used to the facts that
electricity bills rise, tax payments vary, and it is necessary to plan for the
unexpected - teenagers will get a feeling of how much life really costs. They
will learn that even small expenses tend to accumulate and may eventually pose
a problem.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $50 or more
About $50

Bring your own experience to the table and make game development decisions. You will be able to vote on which features we should develop and help shape the future of Kicked Out. And to make it fun, you can download the exclusively created game soundtrack plus everything mentioned in the previous rewards.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $500 or more
About $500

A very special Kicked Out t-shirt, teasing social games that pull money out of kids' pockets - (just think farms and fishes... see a sneak preview below)! As well, we will send you a game art poster signed by the team, plus everything mentioned in the previous rewards.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $1,000 or more
About $1,000

Electronic version of your portrait in the same style as our game characters. We will also name a game item after you. And to top it all off, we will send you a small, hand-made puppet of a game character, plus everything mentioned in the previous rewards.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge $10,000
About $10,000

To show our deep appreciation for your very generous contribution, we will fly you to Vienna, Austria where you will spend a wonderful weekend together with our development team and the founders. Plus all the other rewards of course.